thunder only happens (when it's raining)
by abbyli
Summary: Beth "claims" Daryl and everything that happens after. post 4.13
1. Chapter 1

**entitled: **thunder only happens when it's raining

**summary: **Beth "claims" Daryl and everything that happens after. post 4.13

**pairing/characters: **beth/daryl, joe, rick grimes

**rating: **t

**disclaimer: **I do not own The Walking Dead or it's characters.

**notes: **Canon up until 4x13 'Alone' and then goes headcanon from there. Beth escapes from Gabriel kidnapping her but is so lost that she cannot find her way back to Daryl immediately. She survives for a couple of days and she comes across Joe's gang first before Daryl. Some serious badass Beth here. Enjoy!

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She screams herself hoarse.

She can hear Daryl's yells, calling her name, getting less and less until there is nothing at all.

And then she passes out.

* * *

><p>She's not exactly sure how long she's been out when she finally lumbers her way back to consciousness. All she really does comprehend almost immediately is that the car is not moving anymore.<p>

Struggling to get her wits about her, Beth's hands begin to slide around the framing of the trunk. Her fingers search for the lock once again, having been in such a freaked out state before that she hadn't even really bothered. She can hear footsteps right outside and she knows -oh, god, she knows this is her only chance.

As the lock clicks on the trunk, Beth is ready. She sees daylight and she's pushing up as hard as she can, feeling the satisfactory crunch of metal against bone and flesh and doesn't even look as she pulls herself from the tomb-like cavern of darkness.

The man is knocked backwards, landing with a heavy thud on the leaf covered ground. He tries to get up almost as she is trying to shake the cramps out of her legs and move.

His hand laces around her boot covered ankle, pulling hard. Beth lets out a groan, turning and kicking with the toe of her other boot. The man yells in pain, pulling his hand away. Beth doesn't even blink before she lets her now free foot collide with his skull and knock him unconscious.

Beth stands over her kidnapper for a moment, her own adrenaline still pulsing through her body as reality finally sets in. She had just knocked a man out, maybe she had killed him. She didn't know and frankly, for some damn confusing reason, she wasn't as freaked out, as terrified as she thought she would be. She had one mission in mind, one point.

She bends down, her fingers gently brushing against the man's jaw and jugular. She sighs out in relief for a moment when she feels the steady thump thump of a pulse beneath her fingertips.

"Sorry," she whispers, her eyes darting to gun at his belt. Her gun. She hastily pulls it from his belt and reclips it onto hers, turning to give him one last look before she moved away into the woods. The man was about forty years old and to the untrained, unknowing eye, he was harmless. Well...

Beth swallows the sudden lump in her throat, turning on her heel back to where they must have came.

Her eyes fall to the road and she finds at least three sets of corresponding tire tracks, each one coming from a different way. No way to track her way back to the funeral home. Back to Daryl.

Sighing, Beth turns the opposite way and heads into the woods.

* * *

><p>She walks for almost three hours before she comes across a cabin.<p>

A hunting cabin. She can tell just by the look of it, camouflaged into the trees. She would have missed it but she can still hear Daryl's words in her head.

_The signs are all there. Ya just gotta know how t'read 'em. _

Beth moves along the edge of the property, fading into the trees as she moves. Her gun is drawn, her long gone knife somewhere back in the woods to where she had left her captor. Her desire to get the hell out of there had caused that and she could kick herself right now.

For the first time, Beth is grateful she is so dirty because she blends right in. As she moves, she listens for any sign of human or walker movement, her eyes scanning the ground for footprints. When she sees none, she slowly creeps her way up to the back exit, testing the feel of the door with her weight before she moves to the right.

With the heaviest kick she can muster, the door caves in and she walks in, her pistol at the ready. Her ears search for any kind of movement, finding none.

She moves through the house as quietly as she can, searching every nook and cranny for life. Finding none, she replaces her pistol in her belt, letting out a sigh as reality sets in.

She had escaped. She was alive.

But she was alone.

* * *

><p>Days go by.<p>

The weather turns colder. Beth stays put at the hunting cabin, knowing it would be ridiculous to try and go anywhere at all. She knows eventually she will have to go, she will have to continue to look for Daryl but something deep down is telling her to stay put. Like it's not even the right time.

The owner of the cabin never comes back. The food that she finds, mostly canned goods, was already dusty when she arrived there so her tensions ease a bit over that. She is afraid to have a repeat of the funeral home but then again, no one had found her. No one had even wandered into the property.

Finding a working well on the edge of the land, Beth pumps as much as she can carry in a day's work, bringing into the house in buckets. She boils it and fills the upstairs bathroom with the luscious substance. When it's filled half way up, Beth returns the rest of the water into the kitchen and heads back to the bathroom, stripping her filthy clothes off as she moves.

Stepping foot into the hot water, her skin screams out in pleasurable pain. She couldn't find any soap anywhere so she would have to make due with what she had. Sinking the rest of the way into the water, she lets out a moan of exhaustion and her eyes fall closed. She stays in the tub for probably over an hour, scrubbing her skin until it shone pink. She still didn't smell like a rose but she was _clean._

She couldn't find any combs either so she rakes through her blonde hair with her fingers, trying the best she could to get the knots and snarls out before she returns it to a full braid this time.

Searching the bedroom that connects to the bathroom, she gets lucky. A couple must have lived here because she finds a pair of jeans that are just a little long but fit her almost perfectly. She overlooks the sweatshirts because everything feels threadbare and finds a black teeshirt and a thick olive green fleece hoodie that she immediately yanks on over her head.

As she continues to look through the closets, a tiny seed of guilt flares in her belly. She knows in her heart that these people are most likely dead and are never coming back but - it still felt weird, actually taking their clothing, their belongings.

_Yer usin' what they couldn't to survive, Greene. Nothin' t'feel guilty 'bout. _

The whisper of a smile turns her mouth up and her fingers close around a dark blue, almost navy sweatshirt. Raising it up, she eyeballs it. Probably just the right size.

She folds the sweatshirt and stuffs it into the duffel bag that she found underneath the bed, pulling a few more things from the closet. More of extra pairs of socks and even another pair of hunting socks. Hers had bit the dust and she was more than ever eager to discard them.

Beth knows the best thing to do is take some of the food and the clothing and hit the road once the sleety rain clears up. She cannot risk having the owners possibly come back while she is there or even worse.

She searches the garage and comes across a fuckin' armory. Excuse the French but there is no other way to put it.

"My, my," she mutters to herself, going immediately for the spare boxes of shells that fit her 9 mm.

And then she sees the drops of dried blood.

"Oh, god..."

Drawing her pistol, Beth gazes at the pool on the floor and the drops leading away from it. Her heart hammers in her chest, hearing a voice in her head telling her to turn her ass right around and go back. She ignores it, continuing the follow the blood.

As she walks around the darkened edge of the garage, the blood gets thicker and the pool gets bigger. She sighs softly, pulling the safety off of her gun. She has a large suspicion of what happened to the couple that owned this cabin.

Tears suddenly brim behind her eyes as she reaches the end of the pool of blood.

A body lays there, a man. His head is twisted back, eyes wide open and unseeing. His body is broken and mutilated and his mouth - his face...

She can see the tiny rise and fall of his chest and knows.

"I'm sorry," she whispers, raising her gun and pointing. The blast is deafening and a shard of pain finds a home right in her heart.

She gazes to the right, to the massive dried sticky pool of blood and whatever else was left and she knows she has found this poor couple.

Beth swipes at a tear that rolls down her cheek, allowing two more to fall before she wipes them away.

"Okay," she breathes slowly. "Okay."

Placing her gun back in her belt, she looks around the garage again. She finds a shovel and a hoe and heads outside through the back exit, checking both ways before she ventures out into the open. Choosing a spot about twenty yards away from the house, she settles down and begins to dig.

She digs for about an hour, going as low as she can before total exhaustion sets in. Returning to the garage, she manages to wrap the husband and what's left of the wife in a tarp and carries them out to the shallow grave. The husband can't weigh more than ninety pounds now, being a walker emaciated him so much. She doesn't stop to wonder what kept him there for so long until she showed up. She can't afford to wonder.

After covering the couple up with dirt, she places two sticks in the shape of a cross on the edge, whispering a small prayer for the dead that her daddy taught her years ago before she moves back to the house.

It's time for her to go.

* * *

><p>She's killed walkers before. Hell, sometimes she had enjoyed it because they made her angry.<p>

But there was the part of her that knew they were people once before. And if anything ever happened to her, she knew she would become one of them. One of the undead.

She couldn't imagine it.

Going through that hunting cabin, finding those clothes, those pieces of evidence that people once lived there and were happy, it made finding that couple quite painful. A pain that she never wanted to experience again.

Her prayer had been for the couple to find peace and to hope that they were okay in whatever an afterlife there was.

She gathers her bags up, along with her gun, a knife with a sheath, and about half a dozen boxes of ammo. She has no choice but to take the husband's spare coat, pressing a small kiss on the collar and a small thank you upstairs before looping it around her shoulders and clampering out the front door.

She walks until she can't walk anymore.

Night falls and she keeps going until her knees are ready to give out.

Finally, she just stops. Her bags slip from her grasp and she falls to the ground, hot tears streaking her cheeks as silent sobs gurgle from her throat. She pushes a fist to her mouth, trying to stem the noise but they still come out so hard that they hurt her chest.

At last, she cannot cry anymore. The tears still come down but her sobs subside, leaving behind a soft hiccup. Then the tears stop and she just sits there.

That's when the gang of musclemen find her.

* * *

><p>The salt and pepper haired lightly kicks the heel of her boot before reaching down to touch her face. Beth reacts so damn quickly, reaching over and snatching her pistol out of her belt before she knocks the butt of it into the older man's nose. She hears the satisfying crack of cartilage snapping and feels his blood between her fingers.<p>

She's surrounded, probably five weapons pointed her way.

"I'm claimin' 'er," comes a voice from behind her. "She'll be a pistol." She doesn't even try to incline her head to get a look at the voice, knowing that it could end up costing her her life.

Her eyes and her pistol remain pointed right at the older man in front of her. He stares down the barrel of her pistol, his eyes steel like and cold for almost a full thirty seconds before he begins to smile.

"Well, yeh have some sass, lil' girl," he grins. "Ya are a gal that had to depend on yerself to survive, eh?"

_No. I had someone. _

"Somethin' like that," she whispers, her gun still raised and pointed at this man's throat. She knows that if she even squeezes, she will be dead before he is but -

"Yeh see, I like that," the man says. "I like a gal that can take of herself. Nobody has to claim 'er."

Claim 'er? He must be joking. That's when the other man's words register and she begins to understand.

"'Splain that," she says.

"Claiming?" the grey haired man says. "That's our rule, young'un." Beth ignores the shiver of disgust that slides down her spine at the term. "When ya want somethin', like when yer huntin' an animal, whatnot, ya have to claim it first. When ya claim it, it's yers. No one else can touch it."

For some reason, that sticks in her brain. _No one else can touch it. _

Beth sighs softly, her pistol lowering a half of an inch.

"The name's Joe," the man says.

Beth's grip on her gun reaffirms. "Beth."

"Ya can walk with us, Beth," Joe says. "We can keep ya safe."

"And if I decide t'leave?"

"Then leave," Joe replies, his tone honest but his eyes telling her something else. "No questions asked. But ya have t'follow the rules while ya are with us."

Beth nods. She hears the clicking of the guns around her being lowered and she takes a chance, lowering her own pistol and slowly placing it back into her belt.

This could work, for a while. She could get back on the right track, maybe figure out where Daryl was heading. He probably believed she was dead but – well, she still had hope.

"All right," she breathes.

Joe gives her a smile that should have made her run like hell the other way but she doesn't move. She doesn't move a muscle.

* * *

><p>A day passes and Beth slowly learns the names of the group.<p>

There's Len, the man who had 'claimed' her. He stands close to six feet tall and carries a compound bow. Beth remains at a wide berth from him but those stupid arrows –

She learns Harley, Billy, Dan, and Steve. Dan is a squat man with a receding hairline and a mouth full of greying teeth. She makes a mental note to stay away from him too. Basically, to stay the hell away from all of them.

As they move onto a new location, Joe fills her in on where they are actually going and why.

"We were in a house, takin' a rest and mindin' our own business," he says, falling into step beside her. "And then, our man Lou goes upstairs to look around and gets himself strangled by some guy hidin' up there. Left him t'turn and Lou came at us. We had t'put him down."

Beth isn't quite sure what to say to that.

"So that's where we're headin'?" she asks. "Lookin' for the fellow that killed yer friend?"

Joe nods. "That's right."

"And…what happens after ya find him?"

Beth regrets that question as soon as it leaves her lips. Chancing a side glance at the man walking beside her, she sees nothing but ugliness and dark.

She then realizes what she is going to have to do to get out of here and away from them safely. She realizes the mistake that she has made.

But that all changes that night.

* * *

><p>They stop for camp and Harley and Billy build a small fire. Beth claims a spot to the right of the fire, enough distance away from the rest of the group so she can try and relax even though her knife will be pressed into her side the whole damn night.<p>

A heavy chill hangs in the air and she finds herself shivering. As she paws through her duffel bag, her fingers close around the navy sweatshirt that she had placed down at the bottom, in hopes…

Well…

"Where'd Joe get to?"

Beth looks up at Len's voice, her eyes finding the dark haired man closest to the fire. Harley answers. "I think he and Billy went t'get some more wood. I dunno."

Beth settles back onto her duffel bag, the navy sweatshirt pulled up to her chin like a blanket. Her gun is still pressed into her hip, her knife inches away from her right hand. She doubts she will get any sleep tonight.

So she lays there, looking at the stars.

She remembers that night after burning the moonshine shack down. She remembers walking along in the dark, neither she nor Daryl really knowing which way they were going.

But it was all right because a demon of the past had been burned away. The air was lighter and fuller. There was just a little less pain, just a little bit. And that was all through the comfort of being near.

She had found herself gazing up at the stars as she walked, nearly stumbling into a tree here and there, the only thing stopping her was Daryl's hand reaching out and pulling her away. She remembers casting him grateful glances and he always looked away, his ears tinged with red.

He had looked at her like that in the funeral home. She had felt the heat radiating off of his body and in that moment, she knew.

With that thought lingering in her mind, she slowly drops off to sleep.

* * *

><p>A loud shuffling wakes her less than an hour later.<p>

On instinct, Beth goes for her knife, quickly pulling it from it's sheath as she sits up, her eyes gazing around.

The fire is burning low now, Billy leaning over to brush at the embers. Past Harley, she sees two men walking towards the camp side by side. Joe and someone else. Someone with dark shaggy hair and a crossbow.

Beth can't help but stare, she really can't. She's never been one to gaze openmouthed but this…

She clampers to her feet, her knife back in it's sheath as she moves, darting around Harley and Dan, not even caring if they are there.

Daryl catches her as she throws herself against his chest, his arms wrapping around her back and holding on tight. She hears a great breath escape him and she lets out one of her own.

They had found each other.

Beth pulls her arms even tighter around Daryl's shoulders, her fingernails digging into the embroidered wings of the vest. She opens her eyes and sees Joe watching them.

She gazes back at Joe, cocking her head to the side just a little bit. Her chin grazes the soaking wet leather of Daryl's jacket and she holds on. Joe raises a brow and she nods, breathing out once again.

"Claimed."

**.**

**.**

* * *

><p><strong>I saw a drawing of Beth and Daryl on tumblr and Beth had scooped Daryl up in her arms, shouting 'Claimed!'. This idea jumped into my head and I couldn't put it down. <strong>

**There will be a part 2. For now, reviews? **


	2. Chapter 2

**entitled: **thunder only happens (when it's raining)

**summary: **Beth "claims" Daryl and everything that happens after. post 4.13

**pairing/characters: **beth/daryl, joe, rick grimes

**rating: **t for heavy violence and swearing

**disclaimer: **I do not own the Walking dead. If I did, I wouldn't be fucking with everyone's emotions right now.

**notes: **Okay, here's part 2. Some sweet Bethyl, and a little bit of badass Beth. The full throttle comes next chapter.

I got to say, I am Team On the Fence right now. But there are so many clues pointing to the fact that Beth is alive and coming back but we are not going to actually see her until the season finale. I am about 75 percent sure that these amazing theories are right and 25 percent sure that the writers are actually that stupid. The one thing that clicks in my mind though is, if Beth was truly gone, wouldn't Norman Reedus, Emily Kinney's best friend, have said something by now or even hinted at the fact?

So this is for you, you beautiful people.

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She feels Daryl stiffen in her arms when the word leaves her lips.

_Claimed. _

She had just claimed him as hers. In a way, he had always been hers but now - for now, Joe and his cronies couldn't lay a finger on him. She knew that they didn't invite him back here for tea and crumpets. Something, some sort of shit was just about to hit the fan.

Beth slowly detangles herself from Daryl's grip, turning to look at Joe once again. Her eyes lock with his steely ones and he gives her another curt nod.

_For now. _

"Make yerself comfortable, Daryl," Joe says before he turns away.

Daryl watches him go back to the fire, picking up a large branch from the ground and pushing at the embers that crack and sizzle at the base. The older man doesn't look back but Beth holds on.

"Come'n," she says, gently pulling on Daryl's arm. "I've claimed a spot over 'ere."

He allows her to pull him along, his eyes occasionally darting back to the older man in the rose embroidered shirt. As he falls into step behind Beth, she can still feel his fingers wrapped around hers. Holding on for dear life because maybe they are both about to drown.

Beth sits back down on her little spot first, allowing Daryl to slide down beside her. She notices the occasional tremble of his shoulders and lips, peering in.

"Are ya cold?" she asks.

"Mildly."

Beth pulls her duffel bag near, reaching in and gently pulling the navy sweatshirt from it. Daryl gazes at her in surprise before taking the warm shirt from her.

"Where'd ya get this?" he whispers, his eyes still on the fleece-like material. His hair is soft and wet and shaggy and falling across his forehead and Beth suddenly has the urge to gently brush it away.

She begins at the beginning.

She tells him about escaping from the car that took her and attempting to track back to where she had come from, but there had been too many tracks pushed into the road and she became hopelessly lost after about three hours. She sees Daryl smirk out of the corner of her eye at those words and she resists the urge to slap his shoulder.

"Not funny."

"A little funny," he says, his eyes still on the sweatshirt in his lap.

"So yer are tellin' me that ya can track tires on a rainy muddy road?"

"I followed ya for two days."

Those words hang in the air like lead. Beth blinks, once and then twice before she actually processes the words.

"Ya did?"

Daryl scoffs, nearly tossing the sweatshirt back at her before his fingers stretch and hold on. "Ya really think I'd leave yer ass behind?"

"Well, Mr. Dixon, that makes me feel so honored," Beth says after a beat, a hint of a smile turning the corner of her lip up.

Daryl gazes down at her, brows raised before he smirks. "Smartass."

"Yeah, well..." Beth says, her little smile getting larger. She sighs softly, peeking at Daryl out of the corner of her eye. "That sweatshirt ain't gonna bite, ya know."

He gives a look that clearly spells out for her to kiss his ass but he doesn't ignore her, shucking off his vest and the soaking wet jacket underneath before he pulls the sweatshirt on over his head. Beth takes the jacket and spreads it out over her lumpy duffel bag in some hopes that it will be somewhat dry by the morning.

"So ya gave up on trackin' and went into the woods. What happened after that?"

Beth leans back on the heels of her hands, spreading her neck back and exposing the column of her throat. Daryl finds himself staring for all of two seconds before he begrudgingly turns his eyes away.

"I found a huntin' cabin," she says. "I remembered what ya told me, about how things like t'blend in and I spotted it, almost buried in the trees. It was too perfect, like someone had left it recently."

"What happened then?"

"I searched it and found nobody," Beth says after a beat, her crystal like eyes gaining a far away appearance. He can tell just by that that something happened. Something that caused her to leave and wind up here with Joe and his group. "So I rested up, found these clothes an' took what food I could. I found more weapons, not much. Another handgun, an' a knife. Got 'bout five boxes of mags in there," she says, nodding towards her jacket covered bag. "Should last for 'while if we're careful."

He ignores the flush at her use of the word '_we_'.

"The couple that had been at the huntin' cabin, they were still there actually," Beth says, her eyes still on the blazing fire. Daryl suddenly notices that they are the only ones still awake, the rest of the group having each dropped off one by one in their own little bundles of blankets and coats. The air was silent except for the sounds of the fire sizzling away merrily and the occasional snore and grunt from the sleeping group.

"I found blood in the garage. A lot," Beth says. "I kept hearin' yer voice in my head, tellin' me to get the hell outta there but I couldn't. And I found them."

"The couple?" Daryl asks.

Beth nods, a tear rolling down her cheek. God, ever since she had said she didn't cry anymore, she had done nothing but cry. She hated crying, hated it. It made her feel weak and she didn't want to be weak. She wanted to be strong.

"The husband had turned and there was nothin' left of the wife," Beth says, swiping at the tear. "I put the husband down and did what I could to let them be at peace and I got outta there. I started walkin' in one direction and kept goin' until I couldn't go anymore."

"That's when Joe found ya?"

Beth nods. "That's when Joe found me." She chances a glance his way and feels Daryl's eyes right on her. She tries to ignore the flush of heat to her face as she lumbers on with her story. "Did Joe tell ya 'bout their code?"

"This 'claimin' business?" Daryl repeats. "Got the gist of it. Care t'explain that little show when I came in?"

Beth blushes fully this time, not even bothering to hide it. "He scares me, Daryl," she whispers. "I was lookin' for ya and I found him instead and it's just - even if I tried t'go, I doubt he woulda let me."

"How did you get outta the bein' claimed?" Daryl asks.

"I kinda...pistol whipped Joe in the face."

Honestly, Daryl's face is the most comical thing she has ever seen in her life. His jaw hangs slack for just a moment, lapis lazuli eyes wide.

"I know, I know," Beth tries to begin, swallowing a giggle. "I should be dead right now but I guess nearly breakin' his nose impressed him and he offered to give me a place here for a while. But I don't like it. I don't like what could happen."

Daryl nods. "That's a'right," he says, his voice surprisingly gentle. "We can leave."

"I don't think he'll let us."

"That doesn't matter," Daryl says. "We'll leave, when we can."

Beth bows her head, a slight shiver crossing her upper form. She sighs again, swallowing at the lump in her throat.

"I'm sorry I claimed ya," she whispers, still staring at her knees. "I was a'scared and I just -"

Daryl chuckles softly. "That's a'right, Greene. As long as ya don't make me yer bitch, I think we're good."

Beth laughs too, lightly slapping his upper arm. "So yer turn. Tell me yer story about since - well..."

Daryl shifts forward in his seat, his shoulder brushing against hers. "After what happen'd, I followed the car for two days. I came t'fork in the road, and, well -"

Beth nods, her expression soft.

"I think I just fell and laid there. I thought ya were gone and I didn't wanna -" Daryl's voice catches then with some emotion that Beth had never heard before, not in the year that she had known him.

Having Daryl break down in front of her at the moonshine shack, having him just open up and then crumble...Beth wasn't really sure how to take that. He was a man that was always so stoic, always standing up and never falling down.

She had heard his screams when he had come back to the prison after putting down his brother. She remembered that, hearing him lose it in front of Carol and Rick. But she had never actually seen it until that day.

So she did what any other human being would do. She grabbed him and held on.

She remembers attempting to burrow into his back, pressing her nose in between those angel wings and trying to breathe him in. To reach down into his soul and taking his pain into herself.

She thinks about that evening at the funeral home. She thinks about the way that he had looked at her in the candle light, his eyes filled with something she couldn't quite put her finger on. But it made sense later.

He looked at her like she was the only person in the world. He breathed her in, he made her feel like she had been knocked off her feet and set adrift on a cloud of pure bliss. He saw her.

"...but I heard yer voice in my head too," Daryl says. When Beth looks at him questionably, he smiles. That smile is more of a smirk, the very corner of his mouth turned up. "Ya told me t'get up off my ass and not give up."

"Yeah, that does sound like me," Beth whispers. She gazes back his way again and catches his eyelids drooping, the tiniest of yawns escaping his lips. "Ya should get some sleep."

"So should ya."

"I think I'm on watch," Beth says, glancing around at their snoring companions. Even Joe had nodded off, his rifle clutched in his hands and chin resting on his chest. His greying hair flopped in his face and Beth wondered for just a moment what he was like before the turn. "Don't worry, Daryl Dixon. I'll protect ya."

Daryl snorts as he shifts backwards, laying his head down onto his pack. "I'm sure ya will, Greene."

Beth watched him out of the corner of her eye until she heard light snores coming from her right. Glancing back down, she sees Daryl finally out, his chest rising and falling with even breaths.

She had watched him sleep in that casket back at the funeral home. When this man slept, years disappeared from his face. She guessed that Daryl was only around thirty, maybe thirty-five but these last years had been the worst and weighed on everyone. When she had found that bathroom mirror at the cabin, she almost didn't recognize herself. No longer nineteen years old even though she was. The woman that looked back at her could probably pass for late twenties because of how much had gone by.

Knowing that Daryl would find her especially creepy for what she was about to do, Beth leans down and gently brushes the hair off of his forehead. His hair, a dark mahogany brown, was surprisingly soft between her fingers and for a brief moment, she imagines doing this in another situation.

Shaking her head, Beth pulls her mind out of the gutter. She can't think like that, especially now.

She just can't.

* * *

><p>They move at daybreak.<p>

Tony leads the way as the last of the fire is put down, following a line of trails before they suddenly break into a clear field.

"Here we are," Joe announces and Beth looks where the older man points. A set of railroad tracks lay about a hundred meters away, disappearing back into the woods on the other side.

Beth's eyes dart around and she sees the ruins of an railway stop, burnt right down to the foundation. She heads for the broken building, gently pulling away from Daryl's protective hold. She hears him behind her, following her like she is about to disappear again.

"I'm just gonna check it out, I don't need a babysitter," she hisses over her shoulder, not breaking her stride.

"Yeah, well..." Daryl doesn't answer but she can almost hear the words on his lips. Her free hand gently pushes back, finding his and giving it the lightest of squeezes before she lets go.

"I'm right here. Not goin' nowhere."

"Is that a fact?" Daryl asks, a half hearted attempt at amusement but she can hear the hidden worry in his voice.

"A fact, Mr. Dixon."

"Hey! Lovebirds, what're ya doin' over there?!" comes Joe's voice from across the field.

Beth blinks, realizing just then that they have been standing right at the center of the ruined foundation for nearly five minutes. She blinks again, glancing sideways at Daryl.

"I want t'leave a message," she breathes. "Somethin' that can tell the others we're alive an' okay."

Daryl nods lightly before he reaches into his pocket and pulls out his faded and stained bandanna. With no words, he takes Beth's knife right from it's sheath and cuts the very end of it before giving the tiny slip a tug. The bandanna tears and Daryl lets the strip fall to the concrete floor by their feet.

"Let's go," Daryl says as he slides Beth's knife back into it's sheath on her hip. Beth ignores the way her skin tingles when his fingers brush against her thigh.

* * *

><p>They follow the tracks for over a mile before Beth pipes up.<p>

"Can ya tell me more about the guy yer lookin' for?" she asks, her eyes right on Joe.

Joe glances over his shoulder at her, a crease of a wicked smile pulling his lip up before his grey eyes dart to Daryl beside her. "That's right," he says after a beat. "I din't catch ya up, did I, Daryl?"

Daryl gazes back at Joe, unblinking before he gives a slight incline of the head. Joe scoffs, stepping back so he is at even pace beside the two of them on Daryl's right. Beth watches Daryl's face as Joe relays the same information to him that he gave her before, about Lou getting himself killed and the man doing it fleeing before they could catch up.

Beth finds she feels no sympathy for these men at all. Yeah, they may protect their loyal own but she doubts that they would even blink an eye if the situation had been reversed. Whoever had killed their friend had his own life on the line and just had to act.

Beth's eyes find Daryl's and he nods again, just a mere dip of the head.

_They leave tonight. _

* * *

><p><strong>.<strong>

**.**

**Okay, so I lied. There will be a part 3. I just thought having it all run together in one long oneshot would be a bit of a pain so I am working it into three parts. **

**In case anyone doesn't realize, the timeline is messed up from the show because Beth and Daryl reunited. I am putting it where Beth and Daryl are actually a day ahead of Rick, Michonne, and Carl instead of behind, which is the reason why Daryl left behind a tiny scrap of his bandanna on the foundation of the trainstop. Just a sign that they are okay and hopefully the others are okay too. They haven't realized yet that the man that Joe and his cronies are hunting is Rick. **

**By the way, my mommy is officially on Team Delusional! She doesn't even watch the show but I was ranting to her the other day about how Beth 'died' and she took a look at the facts and the scene of her being shot. It kind of helps that my mom is a retired forensic specialist. She looked over what we had done here and she agrees that Beth is actually alive. The facts do not add up and what actually made me happy is that she looked at how the bullet entered Beth's head and how the shot most likely came from over Dawn's shoulder (like we all know). The way the bullet would have traveled, especially from a 9mm, it would have slowed down by the time it reached Beth, therefore causing less damage. **

**She also said that she doesn't understand why they would take all of that time and money to build Beth up and then just kill her off like that. **

**Okay, my mom's awesome. **


End file.
